Political Culture in Post-Communist Russia: Formlessness and Recreation in a Traumatic Transition. By James Alexander. New York: St. Martin's Press, 2000. 267p. $65.00

Of all the “traumatic transitions” in the postcommunist world, the Russian one ranks as one of the most tortuous and painful. Why is this? Does the problem lie in the institutional structure created in the early postcommunist years, or do the roots lie deeper, in Russia's innate authoritarianism and cult of strong leadership? Employing the concept of political culture, this is the question that Alexander seeks to answer. He approaches the idea in an unusual way, however, by focusing rather more broadly on the concept of “culture” and its potential for change rather than any narrowly defined notion of “political” culture. He insists that a nation's political culture cannot be reduced to one or two simple and measurable parameters but is a complex web of malleable relations and contradictions; and he seeks to understand them by using what he insists are nonstandard approaches.